Windows Mobile Louisville

Google Latitude has been released and I think it is very cool!  With Google Latitude, you can

• See where your friends are and what they are up to
• Quickly contact them with SMS, IM, or a phone call
• Maintain complete control over your privacy
• Enjoy Google Latitude on your phone, PC, or both.

From your Windows Mobile device - View your friends’ locations and status messages and share yours with them. Get the app for your device here.

From your computer - View your friends’ locations and status messages on a full screen even without a compatible phone or data plan. Click here to see your friends from your PC. 

I know there are some other apps that do the same thing, but I like how it’s integrated into Google Mobile Maps, and, as you can see in the screenshots below, it is available in a widget if you use iGoogle!

The screenshot on the Touch Diamond was snapped while I was driving down the road last night!  One thing I haven’t tested yet is whether you could actually see someone in motion on the map! If Ian had been watching his map while I was zipping along at 60mph, would he have seen that?! That would be cool! 

You have full control over who can see your position, and there’s even an option to manually enter your location, so privacy paranoid folks can rest easy…!  :)

As any Verizon customer with a Windows Mobile device knows, VZW is notorious for locking down the GPS capability in devices (which is absolutely absurd in my humble opinion).

Instead, the GPS receivers have limited functionality, supporting only Verizon’s navigation software, and not third-party apps such as Google Maps or Live Search.

It looks like Verizon is promising to change that for three new Windows Mobile devices: the Samsung Omnia and Saga and the HTC Touch Pro.  The GPS will be unlocked on these devices only some time in the first half of 2009.

Yippeee Ky Yay.

Does your device have an integrated GPS receiver?
Is your device subscribed to an unlimited data plan?
Is the device OS Windows Mobile 5.0 or above?
If you answered yes to all of the above, then you might want to check out the (free) Today Screen plug-in GPSToday.
 
Features

• Utilizes intelligent algorithms to always maintain and display a fix on your position right on your today screen, without draining the battery.
• Always see your full street address, not just geo-coordinates.
• GPSToday always shows the distance to the nearest contact from your device’s address book.
• Single tap to create a new contact with your current location as the address, or save the current location as an existing contact’s address. Imagine not having to type the full street address on the PPC keyboard!
• You will never need the stylus to use GPSToday!
• Speed, heading and satellite data is shown clearly on the today screen whenever the GPS is running.
• Always see all your address book contacts on the map. Just tap a contact to quickly call/email or send sms.
• High quality Yelp Reviews for local search results!
• Fetch the full street address for any point on the map.
• Install the GeoTagger add-on to have pictures automatically geo-tagged with current location!
• You can also manually geotag single or sets of pictures by selecting the desired location on the map.
• Supports 240×320, 480×640 VGA, 240×240 and 320×320 resolutions
• Now includes GeoTerrestrial GeoWeather which always shows you the current weather for your current location right on the today screen.
• Now includes GeoTerrestrial GeoLogger which allows for automatic logging of position updates to a file.
• And many more features.
• Best of all, its free!

I just downloaded the app and while I’ve only toyed with it for a few minutes, it is VERY cool! I’ll post my findings in the forum.  Feel free to join in with what you think!

FRESH UPDATE 7-21-08: Both the Sprint Touch and Mogul ROMs are now posted for real!

For those of you who might have been too cautious to download and install the “unofficial” ROM updates for the Sprint Touch or Mogul we mentioned a few weeks ago, HTC now has the official ROMs on their site. 

Key enhancements for the Touch:

1. Upgrades the operating system from Windows Mobile® 6.0 Professional  to Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
2. EV-DO Rev. A functionality for faster download and upload speeds when utilizing data services wherever EV-DO Rev. A coverage is available.
3. Advanced GPS functionality including the Sprint Navigation application.
4. Adds the Opera browser.
5. Adds a full Qwerty on-screen key Qwerty keyboard

Download the Sprint Touch ROM here.

Key enhancements for the Mogul:

1. Upgrades the operating system from Windows Mobile® 6.0 Professional  to Windows Mobile® 6.1 Professional
2. Adds Sprint TV
3. Includes all enhancements incorporated in previous software upgrades including: 
   • EV-DO Rev. A functionality for faster download and upload speeds when utilizing data services wherever EV-DO Rev. A coverage is available
   • Advanced GPS functionality including the Sprint Navigation application
   • Adds a Task Manager to the Today screen for easier access and management of running programs 

Download the Sprint Mogul ROM here.

Interesting, the Touch gets the Opera browser but the Mogul does not…  curious as to why they did that. 

Back in mid-May, we posted that Live Search was updated, and we highlighted the obvious new features such as Weather, Collections and Web Search, but since then, I happened upon something else they added which is really cool: integration into the Contacts menu.

Previously, this was something that only Google Maps “inserted” into the Contacts menu, and I found it very handy (though it would error sometimes because it would try to find an address including the Country/Region).  Live Search is now offering the same addition to the menu - Show On Map.  So far, on every contact I have tried, it works flawlessly, so apparently Live Search is looking at the contact info correctly, whereas Google Maps occasionally errs…

I am very excited about this find, as it adds a feature that I thought was lacking in Live Search.   Previously, I had both Google Maps and Live Search installed,  so I could have the best of both apps.  Now I just have Live Search on my Mogul.

I hope one of the next things they address is the live navigation - it works nicely, but I wish they’d force the map to turn so where you’re heading is at the top of the screen. Currently, the map always stays with North on top, so if you have your device in a mount in your vehicle, the actual route you are seeing could be pointing in any direction, which is confusing.  It needs to resemble how other GPS’s display navigation, even if it’s only 2D and not 3D like so many GPS’s nowadays.

I am a Sprint Mogul owner, like a lot of us in the Windows Mobile Louisville group. Ever since I bought the device last September, I’d been hearing that the Mogul had a built-in GPS chip, and was eager to find out if and when it was going to be used.  In November 2007, HTC posted on their website that it really did have a GPS chip, and that we should see a new ROM for the Mogul in Q1 of 2008.

“HTC is currently developing a separate ROM update which enables the EV-DO Rev. A and GPS capabilities that are already built into the Mogul hardware. Sprint and HTC plan to make this software ROM available in early 1Q 2008. Please bookmark this page for easy reference.”
(Posted November 29, 2007)

Q1 ends in less than three weeks and we still haven’t seen hide or hair of a ROM from Sprint or HTC.  We have seen an unofficial leaked ROM that enabled the GPS chip and also gave the Mogul Rev A.  Since then, there’ve been lots of rumors of when the real ROM will be released.  This post on PPCGeeks claims that the official ROM (3.35.651.2) will be released on the HTC site on Monday March 10th.  By all appearances, the post looks and sounds very plausible and has a lot of info that seems to make sense to me, so I am sitting here with my fingers crossed hoping it really is true and Monday I will have a Mogul with working GPS and Rev A speeds! - Ian